If we look for common denominators to all diseases, factors that make any disease you have worse, then correctingthese factors will help and perhaps cure, whatever is wrong with you. The fact is, every disease begins, at a cellular level, with those particular cells becoming acid, toxic, polluted. Since the internal environment or internal milieu the cells live in effects all diseases, this is the best place to start, no matter what is wrong with you. The acid/base balance or lack thereof in this internal milieu, is easy to evaluate. Simply, you measure how acid your saliva and urine are, at home.

First, I would like to describe what a latent" acidosis" is and how we get into such a condition. When protein breaks down in our bodies, it breaks down into strong acids. These three acids must be excreted by the kidneys because they contain sulfur, phosphorus or nitrogen which cannot break down into water and carbon dioxide to be eliminated as the weak acids are. In their passage through the kidneys these strong acids must take a basic mineral with them because in this way they are converted into their neutral salts and don't burn the kidneys on their way out as would happen if these acids were excreted in their free acid form.

Sulfuric acid or any of the strong acids are excreted mainly as the salts of sodium, potassium, magnesium or calcium as these are the main basic minerals of the body, the ones that are the most plentiful. The sulfur in sulfuric acid can and does combine with the calcium in your bones for one and is excreted as the corresponding salt which is called calcium sulfate. This salt does not harm the kidneys on its way through them but it does rob the body of the needed basic calcium. By taking all these basic minerals out of the body you make the body relatively more acid. A latent "acidosis" develops then because the body becomes relatively base deficient. Becoming BASE DEFICIENT is the same as becoming acid, right? Latent "acidosis" is not the frank or real acidosis (so the quotes) of hospital medicine because the pH of the blood itself does not change. We need protein, obviously, but all we need is 40 grams a day, a training athlete may need 80 grams a day. The average American diet on the other hand contains as much as 200 grams of protein per day, that's bacon and eggs for breakfast, etc.. We all know that the "richer" we became as a civilization and more "advanced", the more meat we eat. Plato knew this in ancient Greece and toward the end of that civilization I'm sure they had all the 'modern' degenerative diseases that plague us today and, "fast foods".

So, in this acid condition we are talking about, we aren't "acidotic" in so many words, rather we are base deficient. This is why 80 or 90 year old, old folks, are shrunk up, little people. They have no mineral stores left. When all the minerals are gone, so are we, our battery runs down.

It is just like a battery. The cells of our body do carry a charge that can be measured as the oxidation/reduction potential of the blood. This energy potential decreases with aging, just as the minerals do. We become more oxidized (so the need for antioxidants). Both things occur because of hyper-proteinization, too much protein.

We aren't acidotic as they say in a hospital, "in shock", when things have gone so bad that the very pH of the blood itself begins to change, Code Blue. Rather, in a state of latent "acidosis" we are full of stored acid residues, residues stored in the space waiting for a ride out on base minerals that aren't there. This is the latent in latent "acidosis". Blood values have not started to change yet, so the acidosis is stored in the tissues as it were. The tissues are acid but technically this is not an acidosis either as the blood appears normal.

If things get worse, this latent "acidosis" can proceed into what is called a "compensated acidosis". This means the blood pH itself still hasn't started to change but other values in the blood have had to change to keep the blood pH the same 7.40 that it is supposed to be. Decompensated acidosis is when the blood pH itself is effected.

EFFECTS ON DIGESTION

Acidification of the intestines

As we get base deficient, the digestion itself is also is effected. The bile from the gall bladder and the digestive juices from the pancreas all have to have a lot of base in them, sodium bicarb actually, to be able to neutralize the stomach acid as it passes out of the stomach and into the intestine and in order to activate the enzymes from the pancreas that require an alkaline medium in which to work. If the acid from the stomach isn't neutralized, colitis or inflammation of the intestine can happen.

As stated above, the main problem with decreased acid in the stomach is that as the cells that make the acid in the stomach make acid, they also make the base, sodium bicarbonate. If these cells don't make enough acid they don't make enough base either.

Again, the sodium bicarbonate/base that is made as the stomach makes its hydrochloric acid is carried by the blood stream to the salivary glands, the gall bladder system, glands in the pylorus (the part of the intestine the stomach is connected to) and the pancreas. These are the alkaline glands of the body and essentially they neutralize the acid contents of the stomach. If there is not enough base to neutralize the acid from the stomach the intestines become acid too. Without enough of this sodium bicarbonate/base for these organs, digestion cannot proceed properly and indigestion occurs.

Digestive Enzymes

One can live without a stomach. That there is not enough acid to activate some of the digestive enzymes in the stomach is not the real problem as far as this indigestion is concerned. It is because there is not enough base in the liver, pancreas, etc.. Pepsin excreted by the stomach cells needs an acid environment in the stomach to work. Pepsin digests proteins. If there is no acid and no pepsin or if there is ineffective pepsin from the stomach because of no acid (or if there is no stomach) the protein passes into the intestine where the enzyme trypsin from the pancreas does digest it. Trypsin can only work in an alkaline environment. ost of the digestion takes place in the alkaline environment of the intestines... not in the stomach.

Indigestion

If the food can't be digested properly, too much acid, not enough base, the wrong kind of bacteria in the intestines, whatever, one gets in-digestion, means just what it says. Things just don't digest right. This includes bloating and pressure because if the food doesn't digest, it in fact ferments and then rots. The fermentation part causes gas, the rotting part causes the obvious. Every organ is effected. The body is Wholistic.

Increased Acid In The Stomach

As we know, as one gets acidotic, first the body develops a latent "acidosis". If there is not enough base left over when the hydrochloric acid of the stomach is produced, the relative base deficiency develops, the latent "acidosis", because the liver and pancreas don't have enough alkaline juices.Digestion can't proceed without enough of these alkaline juices so the stomach has to produce more acid, in order to make just a little more alkaline, basic, juices ad nauseam. The stomach lining fills up with stored hydrochloric acid, the tissues start to break down from the excess acid, ulcers form and then the Hylicobacter pylori bacteria come out of the cells and finish the job, cleaning up the ulcer in the process.

The stomach and its ulcers are one of the body's ways of trying to get rid of acid, through the only acid producing organ in the body, the stomach. By the time an ulcer has formed in the body, Pischinger's Space, all the connective tissues, everything will have become saturated with acid residues. In such a condition the body is trying desperately to rid itself of too much acid.

Decreased Acid In The Stomach

Achlorhydria, Absent or Decreased Acid causes indigestion for sure and is more common than "heart burn" or real over acid production, especially in older folks. As above, this condition begins as the over-stimulation of the cover cells of the stomach, over-stimulated so they can make more bicarbonate for the liver and pancreas because of the underlying latent "acidosis" and relative base deficiency. After awhile the stomach cells just can't do it anymore, make more and more acid while trying to generate more base to correct the base deficiency, the latent acidosis. The Treatment Of The Over-acid And Under-acid Conditions Is the Same as It Is With Any Other Disease.

Cows Milk

This phenomenon of hyperproteinization is best illustrated by the drinking of milk. Cow's milk has three times as more protein in it than human, mother's milk. It is easy to measure the amount of calcium one puts in one's mouth and the amounts that are passed through the urine and feces. This large amount of protein is converted into acids of course and these acids leach more calcium out of the bones than was provided by the milk in the first place! Cow's milk causes osteoporosis. It is an absolute lie when they say, "Milk builds strong bones". Add to this the fact that 50% of the calcium that is ingested by the drinking of pasteurized milk is not absorbed, just because it is pasteurized. Also pasteurization does not kill all of the bacteria in the milk. Salmonella is transmitted via pasteurized milk as a matter of fact. This all means to me that something that is not right. As far as pasteurized milk is concerned, any farmer knows that if you feed a baby calf pasteurized milk for a few months it will die. We aren't even baby cows. Add to this that about 80% of people are allergic to milk and it seems to be not such a good food to eat.

As far as acids are concerned, the only things more acid than protein are drugs, all of them. Most drugs are alkaloids that, as with protein, contain nitrogen. These drugs have to be converted first to their corresponding strong acid, nitric acid in this case, and then to the mineral salt, sodium, potassium or calcium nitrate before they can be excreted. Aspirin, Motrin, all such anti-inflammatory medicines for arthritis, make the arthritis worse in the long run. This is so because the aspirin and the rest are alkaloids which are converted to strong acids in their excretion. Strong acids don't help joints and aching bones. When the body can't deal with the excess acids we consume, one of the places these acids are stored is in the joints. Fluid taken from a swollen joint is always acid.Coffee is a drug, herbal medicines are drugs. All things like these have alkaloids as their active ingredients and are drugs. Pharmaceutical drugs are essentially synthetic alkaloids, made from petroleum.

Over The Counter Antacid Drugs

Pepcid, Zantac, Axid, Tagamet and the like, block this excess acid outpouring. These drugs stop the acid production of the stomach. This produces only symptomatic relief. One of the bigger crimes of the petro-chemical drug industry in recent times has been the ease with which these now, over-the-counter, Histamine, H2-blockers can be obtained. These include Tagamet, Pepcid, Zantac, Axid and a host of newer more expensive ones. They are all the same. These drugs block the production of the hydrochloric acid by the stomach, and thereby relieve "acid indigestion". If one blocks hydrochloric acid production by the stomach with these medicines, where does this excess acid go? (it is excess or one wouldn't have an ulcer) Does the toxic acid then become buried, impregnated in the body somewhere? Does this then proceed on to the Neoplasm phase or does the excess acid just accumulate more in the muscles and tendons, causing you to hurt more or whatever? Do your bones dissolve more or your heart skip more beats, etc., etc.? It takesawhile to know all this, years, so the pharmaceutical companies won't be held libel. As these medicines are relatively new, the side effects of the blocked acid excretion "remain to be seen" as far as regular medicine is concerned.

CHRONIC DEGENERATIVE DISEASE, WHAT IS IT?

The point of all this is, then, that if this condition of "latent acidosis" is not acknowledged, if the above nonspecific symptoms are not recognized and dealt with for what they are, then, SPECIFIC DISEASES do develop. The above GENERIC SYMPTOMS, 'localize' in the body's weakest place and frank organ degeneration begins to take place.The above is chronic degenerative disease. This "localization in the body's place of least resistance" can take the form of any of the specific, named, chronic, degenerative, diseasesthat there are CHRONIC DEGENERATIVE DISEASE is WHOLISTIC, it effects the whole body.

Yes Leon, It can happen again. GERD, in my experience, isnt' something you "cure", especially if you don't change things like your weight, your eating and drinking habits, etc. For many of us, fatty junk food is a real trigger.......even if we've been feeling pretty good up to that point. I guess I'm kind of looking at it like this: we can do things to keep it from flaring up, but we can easily bring it back with eating the "bad" stuff, and even the good stuff, if it is a trigger......like tomatoes, spicy food, etc.